


The Battle of Storm's End

by Vaznetti



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: AU - In Space, Alternate Universe - Space, Alternate Universe - Space Opera, Gen, Sentient Spaceship, Space Battles, arranged marriage goes wrong
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-09
Updated: 2018-05-09
Packaged: 2019-04-26 13:11:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14402835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vaznetti/pseuds/Vaznetti
Summary: Arya won't let history repeat itself.  No Targaryen prince will steal her sister from her.





	The Battle of Storm's End

**Author's Note:**

  * For [septmars](https://archiveofourown.org/users/septmars/gifts).



The soldiers were drawn up in cohorts, rank after rank in their new black and red uniforms, dragon banners covering the hangar walls. It was an impressive sight, but Arya reminded herself that the prince had no true dragon-ships. There she had the advantage: she could feel the growl of Nymeria's engines at the edge of her mind, reassuring her that the ship would be ready when she needed her. 

She stood in her borrowed face, hidden behind the face-plate of her borrowed battle-armour, just behind the Targaryen prince. He was shifting his weight from foot to foot, and glanced now and then at General Connington as they waited. She had heard them arguing about the match while she worked as a cook at Storm's End, surprised to look up from her work to find the young prince himself overseeing the delivery of that morning's hydroponic harvest. Her surprise had shown on her borrowed face, and he smiled at her -- at her other face -- and said he hoped they all knew that the kitchens were as important as the barracks to the Station's wellbeing. As important as himself, or General Connington, even. Connington hadn't liked that, but he had followed the young prince and his guard to help load the kneading machines for the morning bread.

That had made her change that face for one of Prince Aegon's personal guards, no matter the risk. It was too good a chance to pass up: Sansa would be coming here.

Connington had complained first that the offer was a trick, and then that it had been a Stark girl who'd caused the ruin of the prince's father. Don't repeat the mistakes of the past, he'd said. Arya was there to make sure Aegon wouldn't. No Targaryen princeling would kidnap and rape her sister, then leave her behind to die while he fought his stupid wars in Westeros. Granted, this was a formal betrothal, and Sansa would arrive with all the ships of the Vale Systems to protect her; as a marriage, Aegon had said, it made strategic sense, bringing him Sansa's claim to the whole Northern Sector and the River Systems too. Granted, too, the prince seemed kind enough, polite to his guards and even to the station servants. But all the knights of the Vale wouldn't be there to protect Sansa on her wedding night. It was up to Arya to protect her.

If it was Sansa. Maybe it would be. If not, Arya would leave this face behind and continue on to King's Landing to complete her mission. Maybe the Lannisters still had her there.

The tone of Nymeria's engines rose and Arya straightened imperceptibly. The Vale fleet was approaching; their flagship was ready to dock with Storm's End Station. The pressure in the hangar changed as the ship touched against the station, and then the lines of Vale soldiers began to file through from the airlock. They came to rest in columns behind their own banners: the blue falcon of the Vale Systems, the silver trout of the River Systems on its red and blue background, and finally the grey direwolf of the Northern Sector, running across the snow-white banner, matching the crest on Nymeria. It blurred momentarily as Arya looked at it.

There was a pause as the last troops settled into their formation. If there was going to be a double-cross, she thought, this would be the time. Instead, the airlock opened again and Vale Knights came through, each twice as tall as a human in their robotic battle-armour. Their boots echoed on the hangar floor as they marched slowly forward and formed two lines leading from the entrance to the hangar to the clear space just before Aegon and his guards. 

Arya felt as if there wasn't enough oxygen in the atmosphere, as if her lungs were being forced to expand past the cage of her ribs; she struggled to keep that feeling from her face and body as the airlock opened once more, and a dark haired man stepped out. She glanced at him but only barely, because he was followed by a tall girl with bright red hair falling on her shoulders, dressed in Stark grey and white.

If it wasn't Sansa, she thought, she would blow this entire station, and let Aegon and his careless smiles and all his troops die in the void of space. Nymeria's engines howled their agreement. She almost felt the station shake underfoot in response to her wish.

No. It had trembled. The girl was halfway down the row of knights now, but no one else seemed to notice the tremor. She kept walking, her back straight and her face, as she came closer, without expression. Nymeria was howling for Arya's attention now, as ship after ship emerged from hyperspace. An alarm rang within the station, and a junior officer hurried forward to Aegon from the back of the hangar. 

It was Sansa. The last time Arya had seen her was in the sunlight before the Sept of Baelor, when Ilyn Payne swung his sword and she had heard Sansa scream. Now her face was very still, and her feet barely whispered against the hangar floor. Now it was Nymeria's engines screaming, soundless in the vacuum around the station.

Arya felt the change in air pressure in her ears: somewhere on the station the hull had been breached, then patched itself. Nymeria was sending her information through the link: the crimson lions on the ships dropping into realspace, the fleet of Storm's End and the Vale turning slowly to defend themselves, captains trying to stay out of each others' way, Nymeria's own progress creating a lock with the station skin. The hurrying officer had reached Aegon now, disturbing the line of guards Arya was in. It was the best opportunity she would have.

 _Be ready_ , she sent to Nymeria, and stepped forward to grab Sansa just as Aegon turned away to hear the report about the attack. She clipped a harness around herself and Sansa together, and shot a line directly up to the hangar roof. It held, and she fired the thrusters in her boots, sending them flying upwards just as Nymeria cut though the skin of the station and fastened herself to the gap; but not fast enough, she thought, not understanding why they had slowed down until she looked and saw the prince hanging from one of her boots. She doubled the thrust and kicked but he held on despite the pain, pulling himself up Arya's leg as if to wrest Sansa away from her. Stupid, she thought, at this height Sansa could die if they fell. And in a moment, once she was through the breach and safe in Nymeria's hold, she would blast away from here and hope that the station defences would mend the breach quickly enough to save everyone below. Her stomach twisted a little at that: she knew many of them, soldiers and servants, had worked beside them in this face for weeks, but too late now. She had Sansa, and that was what mattered.

Someone shot at them from below, and she heard Connington order him to stand down, and then they were through, Nymeria's hold sealing behind them. Their momentum carried them up against the overhead and they fell back hard as Nymeria shot herself away from the station. She tried to fall below Sansa, to cushion her or at least avoid crushing her with the battle-armour, but they ended up side-by side on the ground, Aegon sprawled on the deck not too far away. Arya released the harness and struggled to sit up, releasing the harness and lowering her face-plate. "Sansa," she started, "It's me--"

Sansa pushed herself up onto her knees; Arya was prepared for her to run away but not for her to straighten up and slap her, hard, across the face."Who are you?" Sansa demanded. "Who are you and where did you get this ship?"

She realised, suddenly, that while they had been harnessed together Sansa had stolen her sidearm -- how had she not voticed that? -- and was pointing it at her now with shaking hands. "Sansa, wait," she said. 

Now she was backing up, away from Arya, until she could rest her back against the Nymeria's wall; the ship whined, uneasy. "This is a direwolf," she said, her voice thick. "This is _my sister's_ ship. _How did you get it?_ "

Behind her, Arya could hear Aegon getting to his feet; she heard him draw the ceremonial dagger from his belt. "No, it's me, it's--" Aegon lunged at her and she whirled to kick at him, just enough to knock him back down. "Wait, both of you, just wait--" She stayed on her knees and rubbed her hands over her face until she felt the features shift, felt her armour shifting around her body. Nymeria was quiet now, under Sansa's touch; she wondered if Sansa could feel how happy the ship was. "It's me," she said again, looking up. Her cheek was red and tingling where Sansa had hit her.

"Arya?" Sansa said. "I don't understand…"

"I heard that you were coming here," Arya said. "I didn't know where you were before, I couldn't get to you, but you would be _here_." She climbed to her knees and released the battle-armour so that she could step out of it; then she hesitated, wanting to step forward, to touch Sansa, to hold her again, to make sure she stayed, but not sure, suddenly, what her sister would do. "I thought... I thought maybe you needed someone to rescue you."

"I thought you were dead," Sansa said. "I thought you were dead, and then I heard that the Boltons had you--"

"That isn't me," Arya said. "I don't know who that is."

"But you're _here!_ " Sansa said, and stepped forward to fling her arms around Arya. Arya's arms came up as well, and she closed her eyes against the sudden tears as she rested her head on Sansa's shoulder. Sansa clung to her tightly. "You're here," she said again.

"I'm here," Arya said. "It's me. We can go home." 

"Go home?" Aegon said. "What do you mean?" He had climbed to his feet and was standing back against the bulkhead.

Sansa's arms loosened slightly, so that they could look at Aegon without releasing each other. "No offence," Arya said. "But how was I supposed to know whether you were as bad as Joffrey?"

"So, wait," Aegon said. "You attacked the station? You attacked the station to get to her?"

"Don't be stupid," she said. "That's the Lannister fleet."

"The what?" he said, just as Sansa whispered, "The Lannisters? Here?"

Nymeria took that as a request for information, and brought up a display of the battle around the station: the Lannister fleet was close enough to engage now, and gaining the edge, Arya thought, as the Vale ships fled, one by one, back to hyperspace. Storm's End's defences seemed to be working, at least, and it was firing back at some of the attacking ships. "I need to get back to the station," Aegon said. "My people are back down there! They'll think I deserted them."

"Whenever you want," Arya said. "I never wanted you here in the first place."

"I thought you were kidnapping Lady Sansa!"

"I was protecting her from you!"

"That's---"

"Look!" Sansa said. Three more ships, larger than the others, had dropped in from hyperspace and settled into formation toward the back of the Lannister fleet. "What are those?"

"Lannister flagships," Aegon said. The ships began to move forward, and the rest of the fleet circled them protectively, even under fire from the Targaryen forces. "They're going to try to take the station."

"Cersei might be on one of those ships," Arya breathed. She had been thinking of making a run to King's Landing herself while the Lannister Fleet was engaged here, but not if her target had come to her. The central ship, larger than the other two, and flanked by them, was the obvious target. "We need to take them out."

"Absolutely," Aegon said. He was staring intently at the display. "I need to communicate with the station, at least. Can I do that?"

"From the bridge." Arya was reluctant to leave the display even for the few seconds it would take to climb the ladder to Nymeria's bridge, but she knew that was stupid. From the bridge she could fight. "Nymeria, bring the battle display up there, too."

The bridge was almost too small for the three of them; Aegon grabbed onto a handhold and stared around him, but Nymeria created a bench for Sansa next to the pilot's chair. She sat, and brushed her fingers against the soft wall. Nymeria hummed happily in Arya's mind; it made Arya bristle, although she couldn't have said why. "Shut up," she said, although of course he hadn't said anything. "Nymeria is a direwolf. It's not as if you've ever flown one of Daenerys' dragon-ships."

She looked back at Sansa, who dropped her hands and held them together in her lap. Arya flushed. What must it be like, she wondered, to sit in another Stark's direwolf? She gestured Sansa toward the pilot's chair. "Can you-- I mean, you have to fly her," she said, as Sansa looked at her, startled. "Just stick to evasive manoeuvres. Nymeria, keep scanning those ships. We need to find some way to take them out."

"In this little thing?" Aegon said.

"Nymeria is a direwolf," Arya said again. " _My_ direwolf. I'm a Stark. You have _no idea_ what we're capable of." 

"What I know is that Aegon the Conqueror made the last king in the North bend the knee," Aegon said.

"He wasn't the last King in the North," Sansa said quietly. "The last King in the North was our brother, Robb. The Lannisters had him killed." She was staring straight ahead into the display. Nymeria growled again in the back of Arya's head.

Aegon flushed. "I apologise, my lady. I didn't mean to offend you."

"You haven't offended me." Her face and voice gave nothing away, not even to Arya's eyes and ears, trained in the House of Black and White. She chewed at her lip as she watched the battle display and waited for Nymeria to find a way to turn the tide in their favour. Aegon had turned back the the panel in front of him, where Nymeria was displaying her communication equipment. She wished him gone already; she wanted to talk to Sansa, talk to her properly and ask her how she was, how she had been, how she had survived, but she couldn't do that with Aegon there. She lost focus on the display and stared at him instead. He knew what he was doing, but that didn't surprise her; while playing the role of his guard, she had seen him rewire a broken door and fix a glitchy display. He was no spoiled prince, she thought to herself, and it hadn't been fair to compare him to Joffrey. He led his own council meetings, but at the end of them he cleared the glasses and bottles from the table and brought them down to the kitchens himself.

He looked up before she could look away, and pulled the earpiece out. "Queen Cersei is on that ship," he said. "The one in the centre. Do you really think you can take it down?"

"Maybe," Arya said. "We could try mining her engines, and we could probably get close enough if we were careful. But it would be dangerous. We could get caught in the explosion."

"The Lannisters killed your father and your brother, but they killed my mother and my sister too. I'll take the risk if you will."

They both looked at Sansa. "Do it," she said. "I'd rather be killed than be taken back to King's Landing."

"Why did you even leave the Vale, then?" Arya asked. "You were safe there, weren't you?"

"I needed to get away from Petyr." 

"Petyr?" Arya asked.

"Petyr Baelish. He was a friend of our mother. You met him in King's Landing before…" she paused. "Anyway, he helped me escape from Kings' Landing when Joffrey was killed."

"Why do you need to get away from him?" Aegon asked. 

That wasn't what Arya was wondering. _What did he want in return?_ was the question she hadn't asked. Nymeria whined unhappily in her head. "Never mind," she said. "Nymeria, show us the flagship."

The battle faded and an image of Lannister ship hung between them, details added as Nymeria's scanners provided them. They could see the outline of the ship, and the heat signatures within it: the engines were brightest, but there were faint clusters representing the crew, and bursts of light whenever the ship's cannons fired. "How does it do that?" Aegon asked.

"She," Arya corrected him. "She isn't a machine. She can follow heat signatures across space, and she can show them to us like this. But I don't know…. I guess we could try to blow her engines?"

"No," Aegon said. "It's too obvious, any ship will have failsafes to prevent that. But I wonder…. Lady Sansa, do you know anything about these flagships?"

She shook her head. "I was a prisoner on King's Landing," she said. "They never took me near the shipyards."

"Well," Aegon smiled, "the good news is that Connington made me memorise the plans for most of the ships from the Westerosi fleet. These are larger, but unless they've changed, they power the canons directly from a reactor here." He pointed to an area towards the middle of the ship, behind a cluster of faint points of light. "That's the bridge," he added. "If we can take out that reactor it will destroy it, and possibly the rest of the ship as well. But with Queen Cersei gone, the fleet will probably withdraw." As they watched, another of the canons fired, directly above the reactor.

"That cannon," Arya said. "It will lead directly back to the second reactor, right?" Aegon nodded. "If we send something back down it, a little bomb or something, we can set off a chain reaction."

"Sure," Aegon said, "but that's an impossible shot. You'd need to time it perfectly, just as the canon was ready to fire, and it must be a hundred to one chance that you'd actually make it."

"I can make it," Arya said. "Nymeria and I can make it." Nymeria had gone back to the battle map, and was showing her a path through it to the Lannister flagship. "We'll pass very close to Storm's End Station here," she pointed. "If you contact them for a shuttle I can drop you -- maybe both of you? -- back there."

"Now you're the one being stupid," Aegon said, at the same time as Sansa's, "No!" He glanced at her but her mouth was pressed closed. "I mean, I couldn't possibly let you try something this crazy without me, Lady Arya. If it works," he added, grinning suddenly, "they'll write songs about us forever!"

Her face grew hot. "Don't call me that." She turned away. "Sansa, can you let me---" Sansa stood up so quickly her head brushed the overhead. "You'll have to fly her again when we get there, so that I can focus on targeting. Nymeria will help you." She wondered if it felt strange to fly someone else's Direwolf. "We're going to go silent pretty soon," she said to Aegon. "Do you want to contact the station?"

"Let me record a transmission, and we'll drop it as we pass. I don't want to risk direct contact, in case they're being monitored." He turned back to the bulkhead wall, and waited for a moment. Then Nymeria beeped at him encouragingly, and he cleared his throat. "Attention, Storm's End and Vale forces; this is Prince Aegon. Lady Sansa and I are safe, and with Lady Arya Stark." He glanced at her sideways, and smiled as she scowled at him. "The true Lady Arya, not the pretender the Boltons claim to have. We are planning an assault on the Lannister flagship. General Connington, when you hear this, be prepared to take advantage of its destruction." He cleared his throat again. "I'll see you soon. This is Aegon Targaryen, rightful king of the Westeros Arm, over and out." 

"What was that about? Arya asked.

"You're going to head to the Northern Sector when we're done here, aren't you?" She nodded. "Well, you might as well start undermining the Bolton claim on the sector as soon as you can. The two of you together will be hard for them to deny."

Arya looked over at Sansa. "Sansa might not--"

"Of course I'm coming with you, you idiot! We're going home." Nymeria howled her agreement, and Arya felt her face grow hot. She blinked away tears: she had to concentrate on flying now, as they worked their way through the battle. The Storm's End fleet was holding its own for the moment, sending waves of fighters against the Lannisters and their ships, but the three flagships were getting closer and closer, protected by their own fighters. Were they enough to destroy the station, she wondered. There was certainly something odd about the way they were moving. _Swift as an arrow_ she reminded herself, _smooth as summer silk_ , as Nymeria followed a formation of Storm's End fighters toward the flagship. They had to recalculate their approach as the ship and its two companions began to lift their prows away from the station, exposing their undersides. It was an odd manoeuvre.

"What do you think?" she asked.

"Stick to the plan," Aegon said.

"Be ready to get away quickly, though," Sansa added. "It would be like Cersei to ensure that anyone who destroyed this ship didn't escape… No," she added suddenly. "Wait, I know what she's doing. The ship is full of wildfire. They used it against Lord Stannis, even though their own fleet was damaged as well. Look!" The hold door of the vast ship began to slide open. "There will be transports in there, but packed full of wildfire, not of soldiers! She isn't planning to capture Storm's End, she's planning to destroy it!"

"Once those transports leave the ship, it will be too late," Aegon said. Wildfire needed no air to burn, and even a single transport's worth would eat through the station walls and kill everyone on it.

"I see it," Arya said. She dropped Nymeria below the plane of the Targaryen fighters and twisted her so they were flying belly to belly across the vast flagship. "How much time?" 

Nymeria must have provided a display behind her, because Aegon said, "You're getting close. You'll have to shoot one of the transports through the gap in the hold doors, before they're wide enough to get through. And then we'll just have to hope we can get away." Arya could feel Nymeria's engines gathering power as they kept skimming forward. Aegon was counting down. "Five… four… three… two… one… Go!"

Nymeria turned abruptly ninety degrees, nose toward the hold and the ships inside, and Arya fired the torpedo cannons; she saw them go through the gap between the doors, and thought she saw a green flash, but that was all as Nymeria kept going through another hundred and eighty degrees, sending them screaming away from the flagship. She lost internal gravity, and Arya found herself floating upwards, clutching the pilot's station to keep from being hurled against the bulkhead. Nymeria had made a kind of nest with hand-holds for Sansa; Aegon lost his grip and was bashed against the overhead; she grabbed for him as he fell back down and he caught the straps of her harness.

The space around them turned green, and Arya closed her eyes instinctively against the brightness. Something slammed into Nymeria, sending her spinning away from the station. Aegon fell back into Arya's lap, with a gasped apology. Then another green explosion, and another. The other flagships, she thought, as she struggled to regain control and avoid the other ships being knocked here and there by the flaming wreckage. The gravity came back suddenly, and she was pressed back into the chair as Nymeria fired her reverse thrusters. 

Aegon twisted back to look at her. "You did it!" He was grinning hugely, his eyes bright; he stood up and pulled her forward, out of the chair, to spin her around. "You did it!" Arya was about to tell him to let her go, that she needed to get back into the chair to take control of Nymeria, when he bent his head and kissed her.

For a moment, the bridge stopped spinning. Then Aegon stepped back and let her go. "I... Thank you, my lady," he said more formally. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to--"

"Don't be stupid," Arya said. She had to squeeze past him to get back into the chair. Her hands were shaking on the controls as she brought Nymeria around to face the station and the battle. The wrecks of the flagships were drifting in space, burning with the sick green of wildfire, but there were ships being sent out from the station to keep them away. The rest of the Lannister ships were withdrawing as well as they could under attack from the Storm's End Fleet and those Vale ships which hadn't fled; as they watched one was destroyed, and a second trapped by the tractor beam of a larger Targaryen ship. Aegon sighed with relief, then grabbed the handhold more tightly as Arya had to swerve suddenly to avoid a disabled fighter.

"Lady Arya, can you ask Nymeria to open a link to the station?" Aegon asked. Before she could reply, Nymeria brought up her communication equipment in front of him. "Thank you, Nymeria," he added as he fiddled with the frequencies. "This is Prince Aegon," he said. "Can you get me General Connington?" Sansa went to stand closer to him, to listen in, and Arya got up and followed her.

There was a pause, and some static, and then: "Aegon! You-- you--"

"Lady Sansa and Lady Arya are here with me, General," the prince said.

"Your majesty," Connington's voice said, distinctly quieter. "We look forward to receiving you and the Stark ladies on the station as soon as is convenient." 

Aegon glanced at Sansa, who shook her head slightly. "They will drop me off, if you send a shuttle up; I think that they are eager to be on their way North."

There was another pause on the line. "So no betrothal?" Connington asked hopefully.

"No betrothal. Lady Arya turned up to prevent history repeating. We'll be with you soon." He cut the line. "Are you certain you wouldn't like to stop off on Storm's End ? You could resupply, and we could have a victory party. It wouldn't be the same without the hero of the moment."

"We need to go,"Arya said. "And I don't think Storm's End would really want Nymeria back. We had to break the station skin to get out."

"You saved the station," he said, "and my troops, and my fleet, my lady. I owe you -- both of you -- a great debt." He took her hands and before she could stop him, bowed low before her, pressing his forehead top the backs of her hands. Then he straightened and smiled at her. "I hope your wars go well, Lady Arya."

Her mouth felt dry. "It's just Arya," she said. "I mean, I hope your wars go well too. Prince Aegon."

"If you're just Arya, then I should be just Aegon," he said. "Or… as a boy, when I was in hiding, I was called Griff. No one calls me that any more, but if you would?"

"Griff," she said. Then Nymeria's proximity sensors sounded: he jumped at the noise, and she smiled.

He smiled as well, then his face fell. "My shuttle is here." He took a step back toward the ladder down to the hold, where they could hear Nymeria docking against the other ship. "It's time for me to go, but listen, I mean it. I owe you both a debt. If you ever need help, or anything, come to me."

Arya was relieved when Sansa said, "Thank you. And I'm sorry that the betrothal won't work out."

"I'm not," Aegon said, and then, "I mean, of course I would have been honoured, Lady Sansa, but I think it might be for the best…" He was turning pink again.

"Go on," Sansa said, and after he climbed down, pushed Arya to follow him. The hatch in the hold was ready to open. "We'll see you again," she said.

He answered, "Yes," and smiled and bowed at them both; then he opened the hatch and climbed through to the shuttle.

"Well," Sansa said as the airlock closed, "I don't think I'm the one who needs to worry about history repeating!"

"Shut up!" Arya answered. Her face was probably as red as Sansa's hair.

"Maybe you'll end up as Queen of the Seven Kingdoms."

"Now you're the one being stupid," Arya said. Then she asked, "Is that what you still want? To be queen?"

Sansa shuddered. "Never. King's Landing is horrible. I want to go home to the North, and retake Winterfell, and never leave it again."

"I want that too," Arya said. "At least I think I do. I don't think I'd be much good as a queen."

"I think you'd be exactly the queen the Westeros Arm needs," Sansa said firmly. "If that's what you want. But first, let's go home." She took Arya's arm and led her forward to the bridge. "It's a long way," she added. "Maybe you can... you can tell me how you survived, and where you've been."

"I will," Arya promised. "You can tell me, too, how you survived." She clasped Sansa's hand. "We'll go home together."

 

end

**Author's Note:**

> I ended up combining two of your prompts -- thank you for the great ideas, and I hope that you like the result!


End file.
